What about antipasti? There are a number of gluten & nut-free bites to choose from here...

Antipasti

Panna cotta? It is easy to do ahead, is naturally nut and egg free and is delicious. My favorite panna cotta uses buttermilk. A nice dessert with a berry coulis if one desires.

Gluten free was never once a concern during our Italian get-togethers. I'm sure you could do non-wheat substitutions though. Even a nut bowl was common fare. The one thing that always went with the nut bowl and the pastries, was a fruit plate. It had all the regular American fruits, but also figs.

A nice cheese plate wouldn't be out of hand.

But besides wine and other drinks, there was always what we called 'black coffee'. It's not a strict espresso (although it could be,) rather it's traditionally made in either a moka pot, or a flip coffee pot (the latter was most common in our family - btw... I still have and use my great grandmother's once a week.) It was drank out of demitasse cups.

Black coffee is served with anesone, anisette, or sambuca - in that order of preference. People do use milk or cream, but it's usually drank black, or black with a small shot of the liqueur. Others might douse it in sugar. Others, wanting a more non-traditional thing, would add creme de menth, creme de cocoa, or just strong whiskey. If you didn't want the alcohol, want the tradition and you like black licorice, you could do a drop of anise extract.

I have a plethora of gluten-free cookbooks (and you will find a number of them at your local library you can check out) - there are gluten-free versions of Italian Cream Cupcakes, Panna Cotta, Tiramisu, Pizzelles, Amaretto Biscotti; and there are recipes like Mascarpone and Dark Chocolate Cream in White Chocolate Cups, Lemon Ricotta Granita that don't contain flour or nuts anyway. What I would suggest is to pick something you are interested in and do a search for a gluten-free, nut-free, recipe for it. Personally, if you aren't familiar with the foibles of gluten-free baking and don't want to invest in a lot of ingredients you might not use again, I'd suggest something that is naturally gluten-free like Mascarpone and Dark Chocolate Cream in White Chocolate Cups and Lemon Ricotta Granita (Giada has recipes for both at the Food Network).

Sorry, that's not much help.....

-Grainlady

Fruit and cheese plate with rice as well as wheat crackers.

I have a friend who does no nuts, gluten, red meat, cow milk and cheeses, sugar..... My default snack for her is goat or sheep cheese and rice crackers with fruit or veggies.

Thanks for the suggestions!

- I could do a small antipasto platter. What is the minimum you would put on it? I ask because my husband wouldn't go for leftovers of salamis and dried sausages and such, or even olives - he doesn't really eat that stuff. I like it, but wouldn't want much left over.

- I've heard of panna cotta but never made it or ate it - just looked up a recipe. That is a nice idea. Is it always made individual servings, though? There are 17 in the group - typically around 8-12 show up - usually with some last minute changes, and I don't have lots of little ramekins.

- The coffee idea sounds nice - being it's at night, we don't usually serve coffee, and I don't drink it myself, but I'll keep the idea in mind for another time. I was thinking of serving a mulled red wine, with white wine on the table for those that don't drink red. And of course some drink water or sometimes herbal tea.

- A small platter of figs, dates and fresh fruit sounds good too (could include some goat cheese & crackers).

- The mascarpone cups also look good - I may try them with reg. choc. cups, as I'm not a big fan of white chocolate any more. The Granita is a good idea for the future - being the middle of Feb. at night, I probably wouldn't serve a frozen treat. (Grainlady, I will ask a separate question about coconut flour recipes in another thread - like Annie, I haven't found good tasting recipes that use it yet.)

I have done things such as panna cotta in tea cups and would just not unmold it. I would be careful about amaretto. I believe some are made from apricot kernels which would not be an issue if but if you are unsure, I would skip it.

Oh, teacups are an interesting idea - wondering if I could make that work with maybe a dozen of them in the fridg - that would take up a lot of space. When you get a chance, could I have your recipe or a link to it, since it is tried and true? Thank you!

Here is the recipe I have used: Buttermilk Panna Cotta from Bon Appetit. The buttermilk keeps it from being overly rich. When fridge space is at a premium for something like that, I stack them. I put a certain number of cups on the bottom, take a piece of cardboard and cover it in foil, put that over the top of the first layer of cups and stack the second layer.

If you want to do something grand and impressive, you can make sfingi di ricotta with GF AP flour (you'd need less than a small packet), and stack them like a croquembouche. It's the fiddly, sticky, deep fried, Italian treat. True Sicilians will tell you they're for St. Joseph's Day, but one can be flexible with the calendar. This recipe is similar to mine, but ignore the picture. They should be golden, not dark brown.

tishtoshnm thanks for the recipe and stacking suggestion! plllog I love fried dough! won't have time last minute, though, but will surely keep this in mind for the future.

I know that these are made with almonds but Trader Joe's has AWESOME Amaretti cookies that are gluten free. At $3.98 a box, that's much easier than baking to accommodate a GF friend. As you may know I'm allergic to wheat and I love these cookies!

Traditionally, there are different cakes and treats for different festivals. I'm sure it might be different for the Italian communities in each city of the U.S., but the main zeppoles for St. Joseph's Festival are more of a pastry. Plllog, Granddad, who is from NYC, says that they just called them the St. Joseph's 'buns', or 'St. Joseph's cake'. They had confectioner's sugar and a cherry on top.

The fried zeppoles were most often for the San Gennaro, and St. Anthony's Feasts. These days though, you can find all the treats at any of the festivals. Whatever sells. Mom would remember also, but she's away from her phone.

Thanks, Rgreen. When I've mentioned them before, since we do them for Hanukkah (i.e., anything fried and yummy), and was told strongly that it was the wrong season, and all the recipes say St. Joseph's Day. The ricotta ones are different than many though. I've seen a lot of sfinci recipes for St. Joseph's Day that were pâte à choux. (I'm told that "sfinci" is the right spelling and that sfingi is more the way it's pronounced.) Whatever you call 'em, and whenever you make them, they're messy to produce but SOOOOOOO good!

Thanks for the cookies suggestion - I love Trader Joes and go every week! No one would be worrying about if it's close enough to St. Joseph's Day or not lol - they will just appreciate that I made an effort to go with the theme :)! The ultimate was when we read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" some years ago and the hostess made a very large cheeseball covered in almond slivers that looked just like a hedgehog!

I managed to find some gluten free ladyfinger cookies and made tiramisu, it was good enough that no one could really tell it was gluten free. I also make a gluten free cheesecake, using gluten free graham crackers for crumb crust, but I don't know that it's truly Italian....

Annie

Ty plllog, granddad enjoys remembering the good foods that we don't have access to anymore. He's 88, and I've moved him pretty far from those roots. It's a challenge for him to remember, but I ask him about things like that on purpose. It forces him to think and remember. It's an exercise which seems to help him. The zeppole was an opportunity to distinguish the St. Joseph's cakes pastry (pâte à choux) from the fried dough balls (what he considers the true zeppole). Oh, and his latest - blast from the past - food thrill... panettone is now found here in the sticks! Whoop!!

I made lemon verbena pannecotta and served with a mixed berry granita for a birthday once. It was quite delicious and not difficult. I think the pannecotta was in ramekins with a 'scoop' of granita scrapings on top.

Hi folks, this event is coming up in a week and a half. I've been mulling over all the suggestions. Question: do you think I could unmold panna cotta from a muffin tin? I may have up to a dozen women attending. I liked the tea cup idea, but don't think I could keep a dozen tea cups in my fridg with everything else for a day or so, plus with the other things I plan on making, I thought what would fit in a muffin tin would be a nice size - any suggestions appreciated as I have never made it. Was planning on trying tishtoshnm's recipe suggestion. Thinking of including a "nod" to Valentine's Day with the offerings. At least one person is allergic to nuts, a couple have celiac, and one has diverticulitis and can't have seeds. This is what I have come up with to make and serve so everyone can have "most" things: heart shaped Linzer cookies with seedless raspberry jam (I have a cookie recipe to make them without nuts), walnut fudge, panna cotta (was thinking of drizzling a glaze of melted seedless raspberry jam on it?) and berries on the side with a plate of cheese, regular and gluten free crackers, figs and dates (how about mascarpone cheese since it's Italian?). Spumante was mentioned in the book, so I was thinking of getting that. I remember a tv commercial growing up for "Martini and Rossi Asti Spumante" - of course no more alcohol commercials these days lol!